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Back in May, the National Income Dynamics Study – Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM), revealed that 71% of South African adults say they would be willing to get a COVID-19 vaccine if one was offered to them.

That same survey broke the results down by language group and revealed that 42% of Afrikaans home language respondents were vaccine-hesitant, which far outweighed hesitancy in other language groups.

Fast forward to mid-August, and researchers from the Human Sciences Research Council and the University of Johannesburg have compiled their own report.

Bloomberg with more:

Vaccine hesitancy is most pronounced among White adults in South Africa, which is struggling to keep immunisation centres busy just three months into the rollout of its inoculation program…

Only 52% of White adults in the country are willing to get a Covid-19 shot, compared to three-quarters of their Black counterparts…

“Side effects and concerns that the vaccine will be ineffective are the most common self-reported explanations” for vaccine hesitancy, and those concerns were particularly pronounced among White adults, the researchers said.

As of last night, the Health Department says that 9,75 million people have been administered with at least one vaccine dose, which is around 20% of the adult population.

The survey – the fourth carried out by the same researchers – was conducted between June 25 and July 12, with 7 631 people involved.

In total, 72% of South Africans said they were willing to get vaccinated, which is up from 67% in the third round.

The proportion of Black respondents who were willing to get a shot rose to 75%, from 69%, but among White adults it fell 4 percentage points, indicating that hesitancy is growing in that group…

While the proportion of people over 55 who were keen to get inoculated jumped by 11 percentage points between the third and fourth surveys to 85%, it slumped by eight percentage points to just 55% among those aged between 18 and 24.

Addressing the scepticism among younger adults poses a challenge for the government, which plans to allow those under 35 to be vaccinated from Sept. 1.

If there’s one thing our government hates, it’s a challenge.

The spread of misinformation can lead to wholly preventable deaths, but that’s not the only reason many vaccination centres are talking about dwindling numbers arriving each day for the jab.

On The Daily Maverick, Dr Bridget Farham, the editor of the South African Medical Journal (SAMJ), says government failure has played a massive role in fanning any potential apprehension:

Our first round of vaccine registrations and appointments aimed at those over 60 was pretty much a failure, leaving many of the elderly and vulnerable behind simply because the technology employed was inappropriate. As a result, the initial roll-out was glacial, which in itself will have fuelled vaccine hesitancy…

The lack of uptake in vaccine centres is…due to a systematic lack of engagement by a government that has lost track of the needs of our population, solely focused on its own narrow agenda. We need information, widely disseminated, in as many forms as possible, right now

Remember all of those millions allegedly funnelled off to Digital Vibes by Dr Zweli Mkhize?

Money that could, and should, have been used to communicate with the people of South Africa lined pockets of the politically connected, and it also further eroded public confidence in the health department at the worst possible time.

Where the government fails, others often step in to fill the void (Gift of the Givers is a prime example), and now Business for South Africa (B4SA) is working with the government to improve communications.

Martin Kingston, chairperson of the B4SA Steering Committee, spoke with CapeTalk’s Bruce Whitfield:

“We’ve decided to create a task team… to put in place a full project plan which will be shown to government in the course of this week, and to make sure we focus both on communication as well as mobilisation of local communities.

“[We must] ensure that everyone can access the site, make sure that there are incentives in place to vaccinate, improve access to information and remove ambiguity…

Kingston also called on the business community to make every effort to “keep the conversation about vaccines alive, and the momentum of our vaccine rollout going”.

You can listen to that full interview below:

[sources:bloomberg&dailymav&capetalk]